19 pop men at arms

Hi everyone, I am Misemono, a consistently 1600, sometimes 1700 player in the 1v1 ranked ladder. This is my guide on executing the 19 pop men at arms rush in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. This guide works best in Arabia games with 3 or 4 deer. It is possible to execute on games with 2 deer, although very tight, and in games with chicken, a completely different villager order is required in order to meet the timing to go up to feudal age with 18 villagers or 19 pop.

Without further ado, here you have the recipe:

By now you should be nearing 60% progress towards the Feudal Age and have 3 militia. Before I explain the rest of the execution, let us confirm your economy's standing.

You should have 8 villagers on wood, 7 villagers on food (adding up berries and under the Town Center), 2 villagers on gold, and a builder building houses near your barracks. If you've made it this far without missing any important timings, you are well on your way to winning your game. All that is left to do is send your militia forward to the enemy's base and start harassing some villagers gathering resources away from the town center. This however, is easier said than done, and the trick to a flawless men at arms attack heavily depends on a few things that we will now cover.

The success of your men at arms rush heavily depends on your ability to scout both your map and the enemy's map effectively. I will explain to you what I believe to be the best scouting technique and give you some tips and tricks to using your scout effectively.

For starters, when a new game begins, I recommend you quickly send your scout to your initial sheep to convert them to your color and then proceed to scout your base in a circular pattern. It does not matter if you scout clockwise or counter-clockwise, as long as you stick to it. Use two sheep to scout, and send the other under the town center to be gathered by villagers. Make sure before you start pushing deer with your scout, you have found your 8 sheep, main gold, two woods, two boars, and berries. This is the minimum you must have explored before pushing deer. Ideally, you would have found your main stone, and a secondary gold as well. I recommend you actively scout with your sheep so as to quickly find all of your resources, thus freeing your scout to push deer earlier. If you practice this well, you should be pushing your first deer between minutes 2 and 3 in-game.

Next, once you have pushed 3 to 4 deer, or clicked up to feudal age (whichever comes first), immediately send your scout to find your opponent. Send your scout on a circular path around the map, and pay attention to resources you find like deer patches, primary and secondary gold mines (7 tile, or 4 tile gold mines), as well as primary and secondary stone mines (5 tile, and 4 tile). You must do this quickly and swiftly so that you do not lose too much time finding your opponent with your militia/men-at-arms.

Once you find your opponent's base, make sure to circle it once, paying close attention where his lumber camp, mill, and potentially mining camps are. These are the resources that you will prioritize in that order.

Upon finding your opponent, quickly engage any isolated or separated villagers with your militia/men-at-arms. Use your scout to block the villager's path to safety (usually the Town Center), and right click your militia onto the villager while in stand ground or defensive stance to attack it. If you arrive too early before reaching the feudal age, try not to lose too much HP on your militia, and instead play to harass villagers, forcing idle time from the opponent. Basically, with men-at-arms, fight to kill villagers when possible, and with militia, fight to make villagers chase you, and run so you do not lose too much HP while the men-at-arms research is done.

Personally, I think wood is the best resource to harass while executing this rush, but sadly it is also one of the easiest to wall. If your opponent has walled their wood, do not lose too much time, and quickly try to find their berries, and mining camp to prevent them from gathering the resources they need to stabilize and make archers.

The timing on this rush is very important. Arrive 1 or 2 minutes late and the enemy will already have an archery range and potentially some archers to fight you, rendering your men at arms practically useless. Aim to execute the build order well so that you always arrive at the enemy's base before the 10 minute mark (in-game).

After the main attack with your men at arms, you will need to decide what army to transition into. As of the current patch, where men at arms have the same movement speed as archers and skirmishers, I personally like making 1 archery range archers. This, obviously depends on what your opponent is doing. If they have built an archery range before you have had the chance to build yours, men at arms + skirmishers is a good combo. If they have built a stable, archers, with a few spears should do a good job. If you go for the archers, complete 5 on gold as soon as possible, and build a blacksmith to get fletching as soon as your wood stockpile allows it. Fletching is so valuable that I find sometimes idling the Town Center for 15 seconds is preferable to delaying fletching when food is a bit tight.

If the enemy has made archers, you can probably make do with making skirmishers and delaying fletching a little bit in favor of economic upgrades. A little bit of judgement is needed on your part here. If you think they have a big mass of archers or if they have made skirmishers, then prioritize fletching. If not, do some eco upgrades and get some farms before building your blacksmith and researching fletching yourself.

This is all there is to an effective men at arms rush. This can be executed with any civ, but it does best with civilizations that either have an infantry bonus, or civilizations that have a strong feudal economy bonus and benefit from extending their feudal age a little bit.

Now go out and crush some opponents with your newfound knowledge. Best of luck in the battle field!